The Systematic Character of the National Socialist
Policy for the Extermination of the Jews: Electronic Edition,
by Heinz Peter
Longerich

2.3 Einsatzgruppe C

2.3.1The shooting of Jewish men can be documented for the month of July for all four Commandos of EG C: - Commando 6 shot at least 80 Jewish men in "retribution" for the supposed attacks by the parting Russian troops as early as 30 June in Dobromil, on the orders of the HSSPF Russia South, Jeckeln, and the Leader of the EG C, Rasch.75 - The EK 5 and 6 together participated in the massacre of the Jews of Lvov which was organised by the Higher SS and Police Leader South, Friedrich Jeckeln, as well as the staff of Group C. As justification for this massacre, the Einsatzgruppen proposed "retribution": this was supposed to be retribution for the murder by Soviet authorities - immediately before their departure - of Ukrainian nationalists found in the jails of the city.76 In the event report it is stated: "About 7000 Jews were collected and shot by the Security Police in retribution for these inhuman atrocities... Above all, Jews between 20 and 40 were seized, whereas artisans and specialists were set aside in so far as it was meaningful."77

2.3.2- After its participation in the massacre in Lvov, Commando 5 initiated different "actions" in Berditshev78 and in the nearby areas, such as Chmielnik79, where a "retribution action" in which 299 people, mostly Jews, were shot, occured. - The EK 6, after deployment in Dobromil and Lvov, spent the second half of July in the Ukrainian town of Winniza, where it undertook further executions, including one with 146 victims and another which resulted in the death of 600 Jews.80

2.3.3- The Special Commando 4 a, according to its own report at the end of June, had already shot over 300 people who were first labelled "communists" and then "Jewish communists" in Sokal.81 At the beginning of July it perpetuated an even more extensive massacre in Luzk, where according to its own report, 2000 Jews were killed "as a measure in response to the murder of Ukrainians".82 The Commando moved further towards Shitomir where in three "actions" in July over 600 Jewish men were murdered. On 7 August a further group of 402 Jews were shot.83

2.3.4- In the second half of July, the SK 4 b shot at least 100 people in Vinniza in the context of the so-called "intellegentsia action".84 Their own report on this action makes clear the arbitrary character of their persecution of the "Jewish-bolshevist leadership" When an "overhaul of the city for leading Jewish personalities had produced scarcely satisfying results"85, according to the report, the leaders of the Commandos

ordered that the leading Rabbi of the city appear before them and imposed upon him the duty to locate - within 24 hours - the entire Jewish intellegentsia who were required to appear for the purpose of registration. When the first gathering proved numerically unsatisfactory, those Intelligenzjuden who had appeared were sent away with instructions to find more Intelligenzjuden on their own and to bring them in the next day. These measures were carried on for a third time with the result that in this way almost the entire class of Intelligenzjuden were registered and liquidated.86

2.3.5The first conclusive report about the activities of EG C in Belorus from the beginning of July, 1941, contains an important indication that the group staff understood the given orders to execute as meaning that not only Jews in "party and state positions" were affected: "On the basis of the instructions issued by the RSHA, the liquidation of functionaries of the state and police apparatus in all the named cites of Belorus was undertaken. Concerning the Jews the same orders were followed."87

2.3.6The event report of 20 August (EG C) describes an "action" and this description also very clearly exposes the use of "retribution" as a pretence.

In Januszpol, a city a quarter of whose population was Jewish, in the last few days especially the Jewish women have shown impudent and arrogant behaviour because of limitations imposed upon them. They tore their own and their children's clothes off their bodies. As provisional retribution, the Commando which arrived for the purpose of re-establishing the peace shot 15 male Jews. Further retribution measures followed.88

2.3.7When the Einsatzgruppen stated in this report that "retribution measures against looters and Jews continued to be carried out according to plan"89 it made clear that "retribution" was being carried out according to a scheme and independent of the existing situation.90